Leadership is enacted through relationships. Relationships between leaders and followers entail building emotional connections. A successful leader facilitates and supports mutually beneficial relationships with teachers, students and other community members. They do this through displaying high levels of emotional competence, confidence and…

To test emerging narratives of principals' direct effect on student outcomes on a large scale, this study investigates whether school principals' time use for interacting with individual students is associated with academic achievement and student safety at school. Built on recent research on principals' time use, this study explores whether…

Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to discuss some of the mysteries around the much-touted recent success of school education in China and to explore some of the key conditions that may underpin the success. Design/Approach/Methods: It is a conceptual paper. A wide range of available data and literature has been consulted and analyzed to…

Purpose: Worldwide interest in principal instructional leadership has led to global dissemination of related research findings despite their concentration in a limited set of western cultural contexts. An urgent challenge in educational leadership and management lies in expanding the range of national settings for investigations of instructional…

The Shanghai Municipal Education Commission convened an important conference in early 2010. A major focus of the conference was the apparent failure of the New Curriculum Reform to take root in schools. One of the conclusions presented at the conference was that school principals were responsible for the gap between the intent and effect of the…

This article proposes that effective leadership in intercultural schools requires authentic understanding and related action; and that this can only be sought through a dedication to ongoing leadership learning. After briefly introducing the metaphor of authentic leadership, outlining the influence of culture on school leadership and the context…

Builds a case for studying principals' dilemmas, discusses lack of studies in non-Western contexts, and briefly reviews Hong Kong schooling reforms. Describes how 15 Hong Kong principals managed various dilemmas and the managerial consequences. Although dilemmas may be generic across cultures, their formation and management seem culturally…

Advocates increasing understanding of educational leadership by adopting a comparative, cross-cultural lens. Suggests a framework for comparing cultural influences on educational leadership across national and cultural boundaries. Outlines six cultural dimensions: power distributed/concentrated, group/self-oriented, considerate/aggressive,…

This document is a chapter in "The Principles and Practice of Educational Management," which aims to provide a systematic and analytical introduction to the study of educational management. The structure of the book reflects the main substantive areas of educational leadership and management, and most of the major themes are covered in…

Builds a case for comparative and international educational leadership and management, arguing that developing conceptual frameworks and instrumentation are imperative to keep the field abreast of globalization trends. Proposes a conceptual framework structured around interrelationships between societal and organizational culture and four key…

The educational management field has developed along ethnocentric (Anglo-American) lines. The five articles in this issue indicate possible directions for developing a comparative school-based approach to school administration. Key constructs, useful frameworks, and data-collection instruments to facilitate rigorous comparative analysis are…

Describes and analyzes an effort to introduce problem-based learning (PBL) into a Chinese cultural setting--an educational administration course at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Discusses tensions between Eastern students' perceptions of teachers as "wise persons" and a Western discovery-learning philosophy, ameliorative…